Thoughts on the military and military activities of a diverse nature. Free-ranging and eclectic.

Friday, June 02, 2006

Deportations

This is coolbert:

Warning - - Top Secret[well, at least in 1944 it was!!]

From the memoirs of the Soviet defector, Ilya Dzhirkvelov, a first hand description of how the SOVIETS carried out mass deportations of whole GROUPS of persons [the Crimean Tartars in this instance]. A deportation where RAILROAD troop cars were the means of conveyance.

"then we learnt that units of KGB special troops and some detachment from the Orenburg division had arrived in the Crimea. I was then a junior lieutenant and was put in charge of a platoon of the Orenburg division . . . Under wartime regulations we were not allowed to put questions to our superiors, so that we had idea of the real reason for our presence in the Crimea until the day before the operation was to take place. Late one afternoon in the middle of May 1 I was summoned to headquarters in Balaklava together with many other officers. The tension in the air was soon dispelled by the appearance of Colonel Shavgulidze of the Georgian KGB. He warned us that what were about to hear wastop secret [read the entire top secret document for yourself] and he then read out a decree announcing the deportation of all the Crimean Tartars as a punishment for the collaboration with the enemy . . . The deportation was to begin at six o'clock next morning; we were to tell the Tartars to leave their houses with only the bare essentials that they could carry . . . formed up into columns and marched to the nearest railway stations, where teplushki (goods wagons [boxcars] used in wartime for transporting troops) would be waiting for them . . . We would not be dealing with an armed opponent but with the peaceful inhabitants of the region, and mainly women, children and old people . . . . At half past seven in the morning my platoon blocked all exists from Komari. The soldiers took up positions about a hundred meters from each other, so that nobody could leave unnoticed. We had gained our experience of such procedures when we were surrounding groups of enemy troops in the mountains and villages of the Crimea, and it presented no problem in a peaceful village. I started calling at each house, with the platoon sergeant, telling the occupants to pack their things in preparation for a long journey . . . They all wanted an explanation, but I was under orders to tell them nothing . . . According to our instructions, the Tartars had to be drawn up along the roadside to wait for another group or deportees from the village of Alsu . . . that was where my responsibilities ended . . . We were to remain behind to check all the houses and the surrounding countryside for any Tartars who might be still be hiding."

NOT a pretty sight, even if you did not see it.

Women, children, old people. They did not have men present as they all were in the Soviet army or had run off to fight with the Germans.

These sort of "operations" tend to be hard on both the ones being deporting and the ones doing the deporting. A special type of leader [callous and obedient to orders. Hard but not necessarily cruel!!] is needed for such " operations" The Soviet General Serov was in charge of this deportation and made a name for himself as an "expert" in such "operations".

[Serov became head of the KGB and then the GRU. All writers that have had a familiarity with the man tend to have a very poor and negative opinion of him. Made his career in a way that was not positive. Did it on the backs of those that could not fight back!!]